Siemens' Teamcenter 9 Dials Systems Engineering Up a Notch

In addition to offering the usual smattering of user-requested bells and whistles, the latest version of Siemens PLM Software's Teamcenter platform zeros in on systems engineering -- which officials call a requirement for any PLM offering, given the increasingly complex nature of today's products.

Stuart Johnson, Siemens PLM Software's director of product marketing for Teamcenter, told us that it has offered requirement management and other systems engineering functionality as part of the Teamcenter portfolio for some time, but only in standalone modules and components that were not integrated into the core platform's unified data architecture. With Teamcenter 9's release, systems engineering functionality has been brought into the fold -- all the systems definitions of the product and the resulting interconnecting relationships are managed as part of the core product model.

In Teamcenter 9, requirements are linked to design elements across multiple domains, as well as other functional areas, providing proof of compliance with contract specifications or standards.(Source: Siemens PLM Software)

Traditionally, engineering departments have deployed standalone tools to handle systems modeling, interface documentation, and requirements. This typically calls for a fair amount of data sharing across systems or (more than likely) plain old manual sharing of documents and files. In comparison, Teamcenter 9's systems-driven approach enables a common view of the system across all functional areas (and up and down the value chain), ensuring that all departments and disciplines are using synchronized product information.

This tight integration also helps avoid costly late-stage system integration problems that result from requirements not being closely tied to physical implementation -- a gaffe that has plagued many a high-profile product rollout, including that of the long-delayed Airbus A380 airliner.

"Now any change that happens to any element of a system diagram, subsystem, or requirements is automatically communicated to the people who need to know in Teamcenter," Johnson said. As a result, Teamcenter's standard change management practices can be used to communicate and manage changes.

The latest Teamcenter release offers improved integration with familiar, best-in-class tools, including Visio software, commonly used for definition and modeling, along with MathWorks' MATLAB and Simulink environments.

Good observation, Naperlou. PLM software, which is pretty well entrenched in a variety of industries--including automotive and A&D, among many others--is now taking a page from software engineering and looking to broaden out to requirements while at the same time integrating both hardware and software requirements in a shared platform. The idea is that a systems engineering approach isn't really possible if software, electrical, and mechanical systems data is maintained in separate systems. Siemens isn't alone in pursuing this level of integration. PTC and Dassault have also done a ton in this area with their PLM platforms and design suites.

Beth, you have written a lot of articles on this PLM area. Systems engineering has often been tied into software engineering as far as requirements are concerned. On the other hand, integrating hardware requirements has been harder. These PLM systems seem to be following the software world, where there is a two way link between implementation and requirements. This is very important, but it is often not done. It would be interesting to see how entensively these tools will be used in industry and in which industries.

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